


Flowers, for Lack of Better Word

by taeminki



Category: UP10TION
Genre: M/M, hanahaki, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 12:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10594152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taeminki/pseuds/taeminki
Summary: asphodel (flower).-my regrets follow you to the grave.





	

when dongyeol suffocates, it's because he's in love. when dongyeol's in love, it's because he's let himself fall again. when dongyeol lets himself fall, it's because he lost his grip. when dongyeol loses his grip, it's because he'd begun to suffocate. love was a rectangular set of tracks, and dongyeol's train never stopped moving.

until, one day, it did.

dongyeol's train was decorated with white flowers when he first begins to suffocate. or, rather, he first began to suffocate when his train was decorated with white flowers. maybe not. maybe dongyeol doesn't really know which way it went: but it went some way, and the white decor of dongyeol's train corresponded with the blush of his cheeks when his airway was closed off.

  
long story short: lee dongyeol fell in love with lee hwanhee, and lee dongyeol threw up flowers because of it.

  
lee hwanhee was not the first person dongyeol fell in love with, but he was the last. dongyeol's flowers, asphodels, for hwanhee were purple and red; passion and burning love. his heart was set, and it wasn't going to let go. but, first, the flowers had been carnations-- petals of white-- of pure and of innocent, and he had been in love with seon yein.

seon yein was cute, for lack of better words. the way in which he spoke was cute-- gentle and caring, and _cute_. the way in which he carried himself was cute-- gentle and caring, and _cute_. the way in which he sang, the way in which he studied, the way in which he ate and drank and kissed the top of dongyeol's head. everything about him was cute: soft and pure and innocent. it was the reason his flowers were white, and the reason the petals were carnations: a soft petal, by nature. seon yein brought it out of him.

when the petals turned to lilies, and the color turned to green, dongyeol knew his love had faded, and had been replaced by something new. this time, it was for kim wooseok, a man he'd been friends with before he even met yein. why dongyeol fell in love with him, he had no idea. _when_  he had even fallen in love with him, he had no idea. all he knew was that he had, and the green represented balance-- or young love, depending on how dongyeol looked at it. he could assume that the flower was still blooming-- and that it hadn't completely bloomed in the time he spent crushing on wooseok-- the two years before he met hwanhee. he could also assume that green really did have some resemblance to health and balance; but he liked to think of it as the fact that the flower never really bloomed, because he never truly felt like he fell in love with wooseok. as for the lilies, he had no theory. he never looked up the meaning of the flower, and he forgot it each other time he did look it up. he assumed it just wasn't important.

  
and then came lee hwanhee.

  
lee hwanhee didn't really _come_  at that time; he'd been in dongyeol's life before dongyeol could even remember. strange, dongyeol thought, that he should love his best friends out of order than he had known them-- backwards, really. he knew hwanhee, and then he knew wooseok, and then he knew yein. he loved yein, and then he "loved" wooseok, and then he fell for hwanhee. it was strange, he thought-- so strange, in fact, that he didn't bother to question it. he focused on what was important: the flowers began to _hurt_ when they turned to this beautiful petal he'd never seen before, in a beautiful mix of purple _and_  red.

the petals themselves were not two colors-- no single petal shared a red and purple tint. But he could reach into the pile of petals-- something he never did-- and find a mix of red and purple splayed across his palm. Three petals could be purple; the rest could be red. There could be one red petal and a million purple ones. The ratio didn't matter: what mattered was that there was a mix in the first place.

did dongyeol really think about that? other than finding that red represented burning love and purple represented passion-- two symbols dongyeol grouped together as _burning passion_ \-- he didn't dig into it. what he _did_  dig into was the type of flower he was throwing up. it was a flower he'd never seen before-- a flower that meant _my regrets follow you to the grave_.

it was an asphodel, and dongyeol didn't understand what they meant.

 _my regrets follow you to the grave_  
_**my**  regrets follow **you**  to the grave_

what did that mean?

  
three years passed before dongyeol found out.

  
in those three years, three key things happened: dongyeol found out he lived in a world of soulmates, in which a person was only supposed to fall in love with _one_  person -- hanahaki only came to people that didn't have a soulmate, or fell in love with the wrong person -- and hwanhee moved in with dongyeol.

dongyeol went to have himself tested when he found out about soulmates. He was told he had a flower tattoo on the back of his thigh-- one he didn't even know about-- and that his soulmate should have a matching one. he then found out that the flower was an asphodel, and he asked what that meant, and his doctor told him exactly what he'd memorized: _my regrets follow you to the grave_.

  
_**my** regrets follow **you**  to the grave_.

  
dongyeol went home and thought about everything he regretted. he regretted falling in love with yein, now, because he'd messed things up for his soulmate. he regretted not kissing hwanhee when he had the chance. he regretted never finding out who his soulmate was. he regretted not going to the doctor sooner. he found all of his regrets in that one day: except for kissing hwanhee. he'd always regretted not kissing hwanhee.

he thought about kissing hwanhee when he got home. he thought about saying _fuck it_  and just living his life with hwanhee, because he was so in love that it _hurt_ \-- both his heart and his throat when purple and red slid from his stomach. he wanted the pain to go away; he wished everything would just _go away_.

  
dongyeol never got a chance to kiss hwanhee.

  
hwanhee came home with a headache. his hood was up and he was holding his stomach and he muttered that he needed to go to the bathroom. dongyeol watched him stumble down the hall, and thought to help him, but found himself stuck. the tattoo on the back of his thigh itched-- perhaps because he knew it was there now. he scratched it, but it didn't go away. he felt a twinge in his stomach-- a sick, _sick_  feeling that didn't usually come with the flower. perhaps he was coming down with what hwanhee had? perhaps they had gotten sick together?

dongyeol sat on the couch for however long, and then he stood. his thigh itched more and more the closer he got to the bathroom; his stomach churned. the bathroom was silent-- too silent. dongyeol knocked softly, and he asked, "hwanhee?" but the man didn't open up. dongyeol gently turned the knob and found it unlocked, and he carefully opened the door and peeked inside, ready to look away and close it should he have to.

dongyeol wished he could have.

hwanhee was on the floor in a pile of petals-- of purple and blue petals. his face matched the color of the petals, and dongyeol realized he must have sat on the couch a _lot_ longer than he had thought. there were purple petals covering hwanhee's lips, matching the clear tint in his eyes. His hand was over his stomach; his other arm was extended across the floor. His eyes were directed at the ceiling, but dongyeol felt like hwanhee was looking right at him.

dongyeol gulped, finding himself frozen. he wondered if he was dreaming-- if this was all just a sick dream and he was going to wake to find hwanhee snapping in front of his face, gently giggling as he pulled dongyeol out of his nightmare. he wondered if he'd dreamed everything-- if, perhaps, he had never met yein, or wooseok; if they were just people he'd created in his mind. he wondered if he would wake up and be eight years old again and discover the little tattoo he could now see on hwanhee's wrist-- hidden just beneath his palm: a beautiful little asphodel. he wondered, and he wondered.

and then he shattered, because he knew this was all true. he shattered his heart and he shattered his knees; his heart as he was falling, and his knees as he hit the ground. pain shot through his body-- from his chest, from his knees, from his stomach, from his head. he cried out; he screamed; he reached for hwanhee and begged him to wake up, begged him not to be dead. he regretted it. he regretted everything-- everything! he regretted not paying attention to hwanhee enough to see his tattoo! he regretted not listening to his mother when she spoke of soulmates! she regretted not asking his father about it when she died! he regretted not reaching out to his father before he, too, drank himself to death! he regretted moving away from hwanhee when he couldn't handle the grief! he regretted pushing him away when hwanhee found him again! he regretted replacing him with wooseok! he regretted "loving" wooseok because he was like hwanhee! he regretted falling in love with yein! he regretted making himself so lonely that he fell in love again! he regretted it; he _regretted it!_

dongyeol didn't realize he was throwing up until he couldn't breathe. a sea of petals was pouring from his lips; tears were ripping at his eyes so that he could hardly see. dongyeol choked; he tried to breathe, but he realized his mistakes, and he gave up.

in his last moments, dongyeol noticed that hwanhee's purple and blue petals matched his own purple and red ones--

  
and he wondered what hwanhee regretted.


End file.
